Lorelei woke up at 3 am and would not go to sleep. She proceeded to be a cranky buns all morning as I was trying to get ready for work. She then fell asleep in the carseat about 5 minutes after riding around in the car. What is this magic thing the car does that I can't? Must replicate...

The routine seems to be working tonight! I didn't start it until 7 (I think I started too early last night) and by 8:30 she was down. I was worried that giving her watermelon for dessert might keep her up, but no sign of that. Pleasepleasepleaseplease work. I need my sleep baby girl!

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

Kid, please, please continue waking up at 6:30 am. I can deal with that. I can't deal with you getting up at 4:30-5 every morning. (I can't believe I'm happy to get up at 6:30 in the morning-- it's amazing how much my idea of "sleeping in" has changed.)

Hahahahahahaha! I am right there with you! The other day, we got up and I looked at my watch and I was all, "Hmmm, 6:45. That's not bad at all." And then I was all, "Holy shiitake!! 6:45!! Who am I?!!"

Our routine is amazing. I am getting so much sleep and so little stress, I can't believe it. I know this is going to jinx it, but holy heck Batman, we've been in bed fast asleep by 8:30 like clockwork for over a week now. All with no CIO, nothing. And she sleeps to 6:30 on an early am and to 8:30 on a late one. I need to go to sleep and profit!

Hurrah for a kidlet who takes to schedules!

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

LittleBear, I think we're probably at the same stage (as usual!). Vi is just shy of a year and I feel like I'm going to have to do some strong-armed night weaning soon. We just got into a new house and bought a mattress for Vi, partly so I'd have something to sleep on before the big shipment of our furniture arrives. I'm hoping that maybe we can transition her to a bed a little early, or night-wean, but I'm not sure. Something needs to change, though, I get one big chunk of sleep and then there is constant nursing from about 4am until I finally decide that aright, ALL RIGHT I'M GETTING UP. (I have a cat, though, so who knows if I'll actually get more sleep if I can get V not to want to nurse until 6 or so)

DS, are your orders to Bremerton? If so, it's a wonderful area. My husband was on the Ohio for his first tour out of Bangor (and Bremerton for the year and a half they were in the shipyard for a BN->GN conversion; we lived in Silverdale). If so you'll want to check out Central Market in Poulsbo for shopping, it is huge with a great natural foods section and huge produce department.. I had a wonderful CSA in Indianola if you're into that (I realize it might be incompatible with deployment!!)... There's just so much awesome in the Seattle area! Mmm, Cafe Flora.. now I'm getting jealous!

I am so forking tired of getting up 4-5 times between 11 and 6 and then the hour of restless baby and then big brother wakes up right as baby goes to sleep. And the naps that are only 30-50 minutes. Goddamn motherforking sleep!!!!!

As I mentioned in some other threads, we are trying to night wean, in the hope that he will sleep for longer stretches if he's not waking up to nurse. I haven't had a good night's sleep in 20 months, and it's really starting to take a toll physically and emotionally. I am angry and resentful toward my husband all the time for no good reason. I am discouraged by how out of shape I've gotten but am too tired to do anything about it. If he would just stay in his crib from 8pm-6am without needing anything from me, it would be a dream come true.

I'm so sorry, mitten, I've totally been there. Those days are so hard. I remember feeling at one point like I would die if I lost one more MINUTE of sleep. You'll get through this. I needed my husband to come on board to get any kind of night weaning happening. He was a sleep deprived SOB in those days and I was nervous to ask him for anything, but he had to be the one to go try to soothe our son in the night for a while. It really will get better.

As I mentioned in some other threads, we are trying to night wean, in the hope that he will sleep for longer stretches if he's not waking up to nurse. I haven't had a good night's sleep in 20 months, and it's really starting to take a toll physically and emotionally. I am angry and resentful toward my husband all the time for no good reason. I am discouraged by how out of shape I've gotten but am too tired to do anything about it. If he would just stay in his crib from 8pm-6am without needing anything from me, it would be a dream come true.

I can really relate to this. Our bickering or nastiness towards each other at home has been 99% due to sleep deprivation. It's really shitty. I would also like to night wean but I don't know where to start and I feel really overwhelmed. I have her going to sleep at night okay but she wakes up so often... I have no problem putting her back to sleep but she wants to nurse. And I'm supposed to have her completely weaned by 12 months. That's a month and a half away. I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm completely lost.

What have you done to start night weaning? I really want to explore this subject further.

Last night was much, much better. He slept through his usual 10:30 or 11pm waking, woke at 2, I let him fuss for five minutes, picked him up, offered water (rejected), put him back in his crib and sat down on the ground with my arm through the bars to pet him. He seemed to accept that petting was all he was going to get. He woke again at 5 and I brought him to bed and nursed for five minutes, and then we slept in until 7. For now, I am okay with an early morning nursing session if I can stop nursing when it's dark out. Eventually I'll start saying no at 5am, too.

Dragonssister, I didn't really have a plan or anything, just the night before last I finally reached my tipping point and when he woke up at 10:30 I decided I wasn't going to nurse him. I tried every soothing thing I could think of, taking turns with my husband so neither of us got too frantic. It took three hours and it sucked. Maybe we will have more nights like that, but I hope not. So I don't have any special tricks, you just have to decide not to nurse one night, and stick to it even though it's going to be awful. Maybe start refusing one session at a time rather than going cold turkey. I like having a sippy cup of water in the room so I don't have to worry that he is actually thirsty.

Lorelei wakes up constantly to comfort nurse at night and it's draining me. Like 5-6 times some nights recently because she is cutting teeth. Maybe I should just wait until she doesn't have any new teeth coming in and give it another shot. Now seems like a bad time even though it is really hard for both of us. Her top 2 teeth popped through about a week ago and now it looks like she has another one or two about to come in on top next to those teeth as well. Plus, we have been feeling crappy all week. I had to pick her up from the CDC yesterday because they called and said she had a fever (she was fine). I am ready for this rough patch to be over though so I can really give the night weaning an good shot.

I think the worst of the teething (she got 4 upper teeth at once) is over. She was an ANGEL last night. When I laid her down to sleep last night she didn't make a peep. She woke up twice the entire night to eat and went right back to sleep. Oh man it was so nice. I hope it keeps up! (Does it ever?)

Walter is still waking up between 1-2am, but instead of demanding to nurse or needing back pats, the last three nights he has put himself back to sleep, which is incredible. Still waking up at sunrise, still nursing him and spending the next two hours in bed, not sleeping very well. My next goal is to eliminate the sunrise feeding, but I am going to wait until his molars are in. My goal after that is to move back into my own bedroom, woot!

Since we have been in Michigan grey has decided he doesn't need to take naps. Yesterday he woke up st 6:30am,took a 30 minute nap around 11:30 the stayed up until 9:30. The good thing is that I was out with a friend and he went to bed without a lot of drama. Despite me not being here. I need him to nap. Everything else that we have been through he has always been a great napper so I don't know what to do. I am really, really, really hoping that this is just cause we are On a trip and not his new normal becAuse I will die when we get home if he isn't going to nap. I cannot take care of a baby slne for that many hours without a break.

Eta: still no where close to sleeping through the night. It's getting better, but I sm lucky to get a 4 hour stretch.

Malka said FU to her second nap yesterday, but on the flip side, was in bed at night an hour earlier than usual and only had one real waking in the night. So maybe it's okay? I think I would trade a nap for an earlier bedtime. I am really wanting to transition her to a crib now, if it might mean better sleep for me and grown-up time in bed.

So we converted Lucy's crib into a day bed (finally - she's 3). She's sleeping in it pretty well, but the first morning, she came downstairs to our room fully dressed and ready to to at 5:20 a.m. Every day since then, she's been awake by 5:45. (She had been sleeping until 6:30-7.) Yeah, that's not going to work. We've tried talking to her about staying in bed until the sun wakes up. Didn't work. We've ordered a clock with sleeping bunny and an awake bunny that is programmable, so hopefully that may work. Any other suggestions?

_________________It's not like I'm busting out my boobie tassles and shouting, "BEHOLD! THE MIRACLE OF LIFE!" - TheCrabbyCrafter

Today Leela had her morning nap in the MT while I walked around and then proceeded to be incredibly exhausted but fight sleep all afternoon. It was horrible. She did go down without a fight after dinner.

But oh crepe, I feel your pain LB. Those naps in the middle of the day are crucial to my well-being. I was so frazzled by the end, I was making dumb mistakes.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

I accidentally employed CIO methodology and I fear I've broken my baby. We were trying to teach Malka to fall asleep in the co-sleeper (set to low crib height) and a friend suggested we do our bedtime routine, give a kiss and say good night and put her in the crib, then leave the room and close the door and as soon as she starts to cry, come back in, pick her up, soothe her, say good night, put her back down. Rinse and repeat until she's asleep. This friend claimed that the first night she did it with her last kid it took 41 return trips and by the fourth night he could put himself to sleep without issue. The goal is to not let them CIO at all, but to really soothe them each time so they know they're not being abandoned.

Now, we don't actually care if she is able to go to sleep without us. It seems perfectly acceptable to snuggle her or stroke her back or coo to her while she goes to sleep as long as it doesn't take an hour to go to sleep. But we did really want her to be able to sleep not in our bed, so this seemed to fit the bill. The problem was that on the first night she cried and screamed bloody murder for over an hour with us returning over and over and over again and restarting the cycle. When we picked her up to soothe her, she would fall asleep on our shoulders and then when we put her down in the crib, she'd pop back onto her feet and scream some more. Eventually we just laid her on the bed and she was out until 9:30 the next morning (she fell asleep around midnight). So then the next night we skipped the crib and just did the bed - no screaming this time, just a bit of whimpering which we soothed each time, and she was out in half an hour (woke up twice in the night, but then slept through till between 10 and 11). Last night, she fell asleep in the car on the way home and we woke her up transferring her to bed, but she put herself back to sleep within five minutes (one middle of the night wake up, but otherwise slept from 9pm to 9:30 am - huge long stretch for her). So now we have a kid who can put herself to sleep in our bed. Which was totally not the goal, but is awesome I suppose in its own right.

So does anybody have a clue about getting babies to then go sleep in a sad, hard mattressed crib after 11 months of sleeping with their parents in a super comfy bed? I am really at a loss.

Things are worse than ever for us. We had one good week, then my father in law stayed with us for a week and got everybody stressed out and upset, and Walter is acting like he's teething but I don't see any molars. Last night he went to bed at 8:30, was up 10:30-11:30, 1:30-3:30, up for the day at 7. What the fork. I got 3 hours of sleep last night. My husband says to just let him cry but he would cry, seriously, from 11pm until 5am. Is that okay?? If it were just nursing once overnight, or just sleeping in the bed with me for a couple hours, I would just go with it, but if I give him an inch he takes a mile and starts demanding to nurse every hour and to sleep with his hands up my shirt. I have to start setting some boundaries here, because I need some motherforking sleep. I am a zombie and I feel like such a bad mother like this. We can't go do anything fun when I haven't slept, and he is so grouchy. What do I do? I don't know if I can handle CIO but nothing else works.

I am so sorry mitten! How long has it been since your FIL left? Do you think its just something that will right itself in a day or two? Sending you tons of good thoughts.

I am in no position to give anyone advice, but our swim classes have been magic for getting Leela to sleep well. The days we have them, she pretty much naps all day and like a champion all night. Apparently all the sensory stimulation gives their wee brains a lot to work with...

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

God, Walter and I have been up since 4:30am. I need a solution, this is not sustainable. I can't write more while he is awake because he is pulling on my legs and trying to whack my thermostat with a broom. I'll be back.

Aww, mitten, I'm sorry things are so rough for you guys. How's the weaning going? When we totally weaned, things got a LOT worse for nearly a month due to Lydia being so mad that she couldn't nurse, but once she got used to it, she started to sleep better. (I hadn't planned on weaning her so quickly, but nursing was not happening for me once I got pregnant.) She's still not a kid who will sleep for 12 or more hours, but 9 or 10 hours of sleep (mostly) on her own is like a dream come true for us.

We have made some progress, all is not as bleak as it feels at 7am when I've already been awake three hours... He did get one two-year molar, so that may have been part of our problem a few weeks ago, but the drool has slowed and I don't think the next three are imminent. I wanted to wait to wean completely until he finished teething, so we'll see. Over the last month I put my foot down about night nursing, and he has gotten the message that there are no boobs between bedtime and sunrise. Things are touch and go, but maybe half the time he's independent (I hear him wake up and whimper a few times a night, but he goes back to sleep on his own) from bedtime until the crack of dawn, when he wakes fully up and begs to nurse (points to his own nipples and whines "Nuuuuur? Puh-lee? Leeee, mama, leeheeheeeeee!"). On the nights he can't/doesn't put himself back to sleep overnight, I end up sitting on the floor next to his crib holding his hand and shooshing, sometimes for an hour. I'm hoping this becomes less frequent with time and with no night nursing.

So our main issue now is that he's pushing the morning nursing up as early as he can. For a few weeks I just got in the guest bed with him and we went back to sleep until 6 or 7. (I can't bring him back to my bed because my husband lets his snooze go off every 7 minutes from 5:30-7:15 every forking morning, which wakes everyone--but him--up.) But nursing back to sleep in bed doesn't work anymore; he is too wiggly, neither of us sleep. So we are up at 4:30. Possible solutions:

2. Ferber the kid from 4:30 until 6, or whatever time seems reasonable for nursing and waking up. Essentially let him be upset, but check in every 5-10 minutes. This sucks and is a shitty way to start the day, but maybe after a while his internal clock would get the message?

3. Sending my husband in to be the comfort person at 4:30 isn't going to happen; he does not wake up early without a fight (see above).

We have trash bags taped over the windows (poorman's blackout curtains), but I don't know if they help or hurt, because how is he supposed to tell when it's morning and okay to nurse? Nursing is the source of a lot of strife right now, and I keep thinking life would be more relaxed if we just stopped completely. I have three months to go until two years, and maybe I'll just wait out the lasts three molars. My in-laws are in California and I fantasize about sending my husband and Walter out there alone for a visit, so he could wean and I could sleep.